All questions › Network, Wi-Fi & Hardware
Network, Wi-Fi & Hardware
Wi-Fi that works, networks without surprise license fees, and hardware decisions that age well. 11 questions, answered in plain English.
- Why do our office printers keep having problems, and how does an MSP fix them?Chronic printer chaos is almost always a setup problem (DHCP address drift, driver sprawl, no print management), not bad luck. An MSP fixes it structurally: static addressing, standardized drivers, monitoring, and vendor wrangling.
- Why are our computers so slow, and can an MSP actually fix that?Slow computers usually have specific causes: aging hardware without SSDs, insufficient RAM, bloated startup software, or something worse like malware. An MSP diagnoses which, fixes what's fixable, and plans replacement before productivity bleeds out.
- Why is our office Wi-Fi unreliable, and what's the real fix?Consumer-grade access points, wrong placement, and interference cause most office Wi-Fi pain. The real fix is business-grade access points placed after a proper survey, a modest one-time project that ends years of complaints.
- We want a camera system for our business without a subscription or cloud dependency. What are our options?Ubiquiti's UniFi Protect line is the standard answer: cameras record to hardware you own on your own network, with no monthly fees, no per-camera licenses, and no cloud requirement. You buy the equipment once and the footage stays in your building.
- Our network equipment requires a large annual subscription just to keep working. Is there a way out?Yes. Some enterprise network brands (Meraki is the best-known) disable equipment when licenses lapse. Ubiquiti's UniFi platform delivers the same core capabilities with no recurring license fees: you buy the hardware once and the management software is included.
- Is the router my internet provider gave me good enough for my business?For a couple of people checking email, maybe. For a real business, no: ISP gateways are consumer-grade devices with weak Wi-Fi, no network separation, no visibility, and no business-class security. A proper firewall and access points are a modest one-time upgrade.
- We have a large building and cannot get Wi-Fi and networking to cover the whole thing. What is the fix?Large-building coverage is a design problem, not a signal-strength problem: it takes multiple access points on wired backhaul, placed by an actual survey of your building. Repeaters and stronger routers make it worse, not better.
- Our office phone bill keeps climbing. Should we switch to VoIP phones?For most offices, yes: VoIP runs your phones over the internet connection you already pay for, typically costs less than legacy phone lines, and adds features (mobile apps, auto-attendants, voicemail-to-email) that old systems charge extra for. The catch: call quality depends on your network being set up right.
- We use a Google or eero mesh Wi-Fi system and it works fine. Do we really need a business-class network? Won't it cost ten times more?Yes, you need a business network, for security, reliability, and the ability to monitor and make changes with confidence. And no, it is often not ten times the cost. Depending on complexity, it can be surprisingly comparable.
- We have DSL and it seems fine. We are not heavy internet users, so why pay for faster internet we won't use?Because modern computers use the internet heavily even when your people do not: updates, cloud backups, file syncing, and remote access all run in the background. Upload speed is the real bottleneck, and DSL upload is tiny. Fiber, where available, changes everything.
- We keep hearing about paid Windows 10 security updates and an October 2026 deadline. How does that actually work?Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program sells Windows 10 security patches by annual subscription: $61 per device for the first year, doubling every year after, for a maximum of three years ending October 2028. Home editions lose the option entirely in October 2026. It is a reasonable bridge for a few stragglers and a poor plan for a whole office.
Want a straight answer about your setup?
Asheville Computer Company is a local managed IT provider based in Arden, minutes from most of Asheville.
Call (828) 290-9092 or visit ashevillecomputercompany.com for a free, no-pressure consultation.